Comments On “The Combine” …

The NFL Combine for 2024 is over; I believe it requires a few comments this morning.  Think for a moment what the Combine is.  It is a collective event where coaches, scouts and executives from any and all of the NFL teams can convene in one place and “evaluate” potential draft picks on the basis of the players’ performances in a scripted set of drills.  It is a practice session with a smidgen of “audition” stirred in; outside the realm of the people responsible for constructing NFL rosters, this “event” should be sufficiently arcane to be uninteresting.

Not so.  The marketing genius that is the NFL has turned this totally boring set of workouts into a TV event that people take time out of their workdays to watch and into an event that people will go and see “in the flesh”.  Let me be clear here; I probably watched a total of 5 minutes of the televised workouts from this year’s Combine and the NFL could not pay me to go and sit in the stands and watch even a half-day session of these workouts.  But I must be an atypical NFL fan because millions of viewers and attendees were in rapt attention to the proceedings.

I mention this because there were some draft prospects this year who refused to “play the game” in the normal way.  Every year, there are a few prospects who choose to skip the Combine altogether or who choose to defer showing off their skills at the Combine rather to showcase them at private individual workouts.  This year, more than a few players took that stance and the player that most folks believe will be the overall #1 pick took that “solitary status” to a new level:

• Not only did Caleb Williams choose not to participate in any of the scripted workout drills, he refused the medical exams provided for all the prospects.
• Williams’ reasoning here is that only one team will draft him and that he will be off the draft board early – – if not #1 – – so only a few teams will have the opportunity to draft him.
• Ergo, why do all 32 teams need to know about his height, weight, hand size, EKG, visual acuity, et. al?

In a way, he is absolutely right.  And at the same time, he just may be showing that he has a tad of the prima donna in him and that he does not believe that all the rules/norms apply to him.  Before you tell me that I am being overly harsh on this young man, let me remind you that even before the bowl season was over, people tied to Williams hinted that he might want an ownership stake in the club that takes him and that he might hold out if that was not included in the contract offer that came from the team that selected him.  [Aside:  I seriously doubt that he will get any “ownership equity” in the team that selects him, but we shall see …]

Other high prospects chose to skip much of the regimen of the Combine.

• Marvin Harrison Jr. did not take part in the broad jump; I guess he figures that teams have seen him catch passes in real games and do not need to know how far he can jump in a posture that is not closely related to pass catching.
• Malik Nabors also chose to sit out pass catching drills.
• Brock Bowers did not participate in the drills either.  But since Bowers suffered a leg injury during his last season at Georgia, he did partake of the medical evaluations.
• A couple other “top QB prospects” such as Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels did not “throw” in the Combine.  They will do so in private/solo workouts later in the Spring.  [Aside: Does it make you wonder about their self-confidence in their ability to be compared directly to other prospects doing the same drills on the same field on the same day?]

So, I am sure that many of you wonder why any of this matters.  Well, it should matter in some degree to the NFL execs who have created and promoted this set of workouts to the point that the Combine is a “news event” with a broad following.  From their perspective, the failure of highly visible and potentially top draft picks opting out of participation does not enhance the TV product.  So, the question now turns back to the NFL:

• The Combine is an “invitation only event”.  Joe Flabeetz from Whatsamatta U cannot just show up; lace up the cleats and run a 40-yard dash.
• So, why do the keepers of the invitation list extend invitations to players who subsequently choose not to participate?  I am confident that there are plenty of guys like Joe Flabeetz out there who would be more than happy to show up and give it a go.

Next topic …  Mitchell Trubisky was a free agent until a bit earlier this week when he signed on with the Bills to backup Josh Allen.  I have said here before that “Backup QB” is an important part of team building even though the preference for any team is never having to use said backup QB.  But this signing of Trubisky made me wonder a bit and sent me to the stats:

• The Bears took Trubisky with the overall #2 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft; the team had to trade up to make that pick.
• After 4 years with the Bears, he had started 50 games, but the Bears did not pick up his fifth-year option despite one Pro Bowl season in 2018.
• He spent a year with the Bills appearing only in “garbage time”.
• He then spent two seasons with the Steelers that were unremarkable.
• As a starter, Trubisky’s record is above .500 but his TD/INT ratio is 72/48 or 3/2 and that is not good.

So, one might wonder why the Bills might want him as their “insurance policy” in case Josh Allen needs a game or two on the sidelines.  There are two modes that GMs can use for that position in roster building; they can get themselves a “fill-in starter” or they can use the position as a developmental position to create a future starter or a future trade asset.  Clearly, the Bills have chosen the former route.  It is pretty clear to me that Trubisky is the model for “plug-and-play-short-term-starter”; he is not likely ever to get a job in the NFL as “the franchise QB” despite his draft status in 2017.  And he seems to have an important personality characteristic for his role:

• He can tolerate being in the shadows and not in the spotlight.  And he has never brought drama or “off-field issues” to his locker room.

I think that is a large part of the reason that the Bills brought him back to Buffalo.

Finally, these closing words from author Joseph Heller:

“Success and failure are both difficult to endure.  Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide.  With failure comes failure.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………